Independence Day - A Day to Act

15^th of August 2010 we celebrate the 63^rd Independence day. The generation who saw this country get the independence on 15^th August 1947 are leaving behind memories of the day. With days passing by we may end up with no one from the generation physically there to explain it. But before that why should there be someone to explain it, After all a country is not about just one generation.

The independence day is a special day for us. It is the day when India emerged as a Geo-political entity. A country had to be built from its roots [I write this with the information I have read/heard from books/people which/who have recorded/witnessed the day]. If a country had to be built, then it must not have existed before. If that is the case then what was India before? What were its roots?

In today's world, by birth we belong to one country or the other. This is one decision which we have to accept whether we like it or not. Each individual (human being) on this earth has an objective (right/wrong) for his life with exceptions where people spend their entire life searching for the objective. Considering the population our country has, and the amount of objectives the confused minds in it create, it is really a hard mathematical problem to get a set of common objectives (although not impossible). In this case is there any chance to think about a common objective for the country? If “YES” Who should fix such an objective for the country? If “NO”, then as responsible citizens where are we expecting the country to move forward?

A precursor for any individual who is fixing an objective for his life, is to get inspired about it. For e.g. if the objective of my life is to become a very good engineer then such a thought should have come to my mind only because something that inspired me to become an engineer. That something can be anything like “I read an inspirational story about an engineer”, “Some one from the family is an engineer who has got fame/name/money”, “Watched a movie about an engineer who changed the world” etc. Inspiration comes as we acquire experience and information from numerous sources (parents, teachers, books, friends etc) through out our life.

Now, how does a country get inspiration to decide its objective. When I say the country gets inspiration, it means how do people in the country get inspired for the country and decide a road map for its progress. Such an inspiration for the country can be got only by speaking of its rich history and culture which has been the foundation of what we are enjoying now. A land with such a background has produced men and women the world would never forget. We being the modern citizens of the country should always remember that and feel blessed to have taken birth in this land. An environment that nurtures dynamic heroes of the future should be cultivated by us. We should teach everyone about the rich history of the country and how each individual has a crucial role in determining the road map for the country. Together we should all work together to fight the diseases plaguing the country like corruption, population, civic sense, illiteracy, poverty etc. and for the betterment of education system, civic sense, governance, disaster management etc.

It is a memorable day (15^th August) as some of us think, but should we celebrate it like yet another weekend or should we brainstorm and discuss ideas which we can implement to lay a road for the colorful future of the country again to remembered for its rich past and culture some 500 years from now.

Many eminent people have started contributing in this direction significantly. I have started my very minute and negligible contribution through Education Informal with the support of my parents, family and friends. My life is complete if I can work with many such people to create a bright and colorful future for the country.

The land that resonates a wonder civilization

If someone had offered me a Time Machine i would have requested it to take me to 8000 BCE(before the common era)...

About the end of the last glacial age some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago(approx), temperature rose and the ice sheets started retreating over much of North America and Eurasia, as did the glaciers in the mountainous regions such as the Himalayas. A sight probably scary but exciting when waters deliriously roared down the Himalayas, bouncing on the Shivaliks and flooding the plains below. Hundreds of paleochannels small and large might have been flowing across the plains below. It might have been without purpose that nature's fury at the time might have cooled down gradually to give birth to one of most amazing, exciting, peace loving civilization that stood the test of time & fate. Although the civilization got buried under the heaps of sand the culture it taught stands even today as a testimonial to its ancestors who laid its foundation.

My grandfather Dr J Shivananda Sastry a firm believer in God was a sincere worshiper. He performed puja(form of worship) daily to the house deity and the saligrama. Kalasha puja is one among the rituals that are performed during the puja. It is done at the beginning of the complete puja ritual. It is done to worship water which will be poured over the idols. Since i was a kid I grew listening to the mantra recitations which my grand father used to do while performing the puja. The recitations were extracted from the four [Rig, Yajur, Sama, Atharvana] vedas. One of the hymns recited during this kalasha puja is of my interest in this article.

इमं मे गंगे यमुने सरस्वती सुतुद्रि स्तोमं सचात परुस्न्य अ |
असिक्न्य मरुद्व्र्धे वितस्तयार्जिकिये स्र्नुःय अ सुसोमय ||

Imam me gange yamune sarasvati sutudri stomam sacata parusny a |
asiknya marudvrdhe vitastayarjikiye srnuhy a susomaya ||

I never knew what it meant till yesterday. It literally means the following

O Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shutudri(Sutlej), Parushni(Ravi), hear my praise! Hear my call, O Asikni(Chenab), Marudvridha (Maruvardhan), Vitasta(Jhelum) with Arjikiya and Sushoma

The hymn is part of the Nadi sukta in Rig Veda which specifically contains praise for the rivers in Ancient India. The hymn is followed by the enumeration of Indus(sindhu) and its tributaries in the west.

Source: Wikipedia

It in fact paid tribute to the great rivers (most of them we still see on the landscape) which once flowed full throttle and were probably the life lines of civilization which our ancestors were part of. The most amazing aspect of this hymn is it enumerates the list of rivers that flowed from the himalayas down to foot plains from east to west in the same order without any omissions and mistakes. A land that is bracketed by Ganga on the east and Sindhu on the west covers more than 1000 KM. It might look very simple to enumerate such a list in this modern day because of the sophistication science provides us(satellite imagery). Could we imagine how was it possible about 5000 years ago when people were defining formal methods to develop bronze tools. The people who composed the hymn were no village bard, but the most intelligent, rational beings probably existing during the time. I do not know how did they manage to enumerate all the rivers in the correct order(may be because of tight network of groups who inhabited these waters), i leave it open to the readers to find it out.

The most important of the above is the fact that the hymn which enumerates the rivers in the correct order is still recited today in spite of the fact that some of the rivers/tributaries mentioned in the hymn are dead and buried under the sands(probably seasonal flow exists).

Although i never asked my grand father why it was recited, but i feel that the hymn was recited to remember all the rivers that once were the lifelines of one of the most amazing, woderful, most remembered civilizations of all times probably from which we derive all our culture, thought, intelligence. We were a great land 5000 years back and we stood as role model to the entire world. We still are a great land and lets stand united and show to the world that we are still the role models.

The first tears for my country

It was in July 2008, the train whistled and moved forward making it’s usual rattling sound. Although this wasn’t unusual for the train, it was for me. I woke up and the light from the Sun was just trying to explain me they were the last rays which visited the east a few minutes back, they are the first rays waking you up… I just peeped out of the window. My eyes focusing on something that it had never seen before, still focusing on it and feeling amused by the dream which it had presented to the mind. A yellow board went past, the train slowed down and the rattling sound became more dispersed… I suddenly woke up and came out of the compartment; just to make sure what I saw till now was just a dream.

The freshness of the air made me feel eternal. My eyes saw people around… people who were fishermen, people who were religious, people who were businessmen, people dressed in different clothes, people speaking different languages… Feeling still in the dream world, I just leaned out of the door… I spotted a yellow board which had three words arranged as the vertices of an equilateral triangle. The top vertex looked like a brahmi or Indus script to me… the left most vertex looked a lot more similar but still felt ignorant… now my pupil adjusted itself to the rightmost vertex which to the best of my knowledge read “CHILKA”.

I just leaped back… The train had just reached the Chilka lake station en route to Bhubaneswar. The cold wind that carried the warmth and vapor of the largest lake in India slashed my face. The train left the station, promising me an experience I had never felt in my life. I was witnessing the land blessed enough to receive the first rays of light! The landscape with water, water and water everywhere… with tiny little twigs just peeping out of the water to pay their respects to the star that had brought the first life on this beautiful planet called earth. Flowers, trees, birds and animals preparing for yet another day of hard, selfless work which they were bestowed upon by Nature. I didn’t find words to express my happiness, joy and I truly felt so proud and blessed to be part of this land, the land which showed the world how to LIVE 4000 years back! When there was hardly any human population when compared to today’s demography. The land which survived more than 6000 years just to prove to the rest of the world the strength and faith it was built on.

I had once heard how Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the Bengal poet had composed one of the famous and evergreen poems of Indian history. He was such a patriotic poet that he considered Bharathavarsha(the subcontinent) as the Mother and its people as her children. Feeling terribly sad about the fact that Bharathavarsha, which stood across millennia without any disruption… which stood like a backbone to many other civilizations, had bent its back to the savaging act of the west.. In 1875 when he was traveling from Calcutta to his birth place Kanthalapada in a train, the greenery, the colorful flowers, the sound of the birds made him to close his eyes. What then came out of his mind were just not lyrics of an ordinary poetry but a language that generated patriotism never seen before in the minds of the people. A language that would remain a spectacle and always remind each Indian his role for the country… That song was

Please read the English translation of this [here]. It was truly an amazing feeling which brought tears in my eyes.. the first tears for my country. This was eight months back, the pleasant sight that I had that day on my way to Bhubaneswar… Please forgive me and yourself if you have felt that I have just exaggerated my experience…

Trigonometry, Sine theta and Our India

This post is for those who didn't know that Indians were the first to use trigonometry. You might have learnt trigonometry during you younger days probably in your high school or college. Has anyone thought about why is there a sine of an angle (sin theta)? Why is it sine and not something else? How did it get its name and many more unanswered questions...? (But if you already know then this article is not for you!).

Trigonometry began with the chords. A chord is a straight line drawn between any 2 points on a circle. Later trigonometry was based on a concept which is a slight modification of chords called sines. A sine of an angle is half the length of the chord of twice that angle (Is your head turning? Don't worry a picture describes a thousand words).

Here sine of angle DAB is half the length of the chord BE which is a chord to the angle BAE which is twice angle DAB. Does it make sense?

But why is it called sine and not something else? Well we need to go back to history to find out why... As sine of an angle is half the length of the chord of twice the angle as seen above, Indians basically astronomers who used trigonometry extensively used to call it ardh-jiya in Sanskrit. If you know Sanskrit then you know ardh means half and jiya is chord. They even started calling it as ardh-jiva. Arabs who were interested and amused by the concept of trigonometry took the knowledge of trigonometry from Indians and called it as jiba. Well they probably won't use vowels in their language so they renamed it as jb. After many years Latin translators thought the word jb was acronym for jaib. But jaib in Arabic meant breast. In Latin sinus had breast and bay as two of its meanings. English translators took this word sinus and adapted it as sine to depict half the length of the chord of twice the angle...

Well this was just how sine got its name.. But if you are really interested in learning all (at least fundamentals) about trigonometry i.e. cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant, cosecant ... then just go through the link. It's worth reading

http://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig/